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Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

If this is the picture people have to paint of Danny in order to make their argument about Lance starting over him. They don't have a good argument.

Funny thing is, Lance does have a good argument as the starter. If people were more reasonable with what they were saying these arguments wouldn't break down into ridiculousness in every thread. (AKA Lance isn't the second coming, and Danny isn't the worst player ever.)

It's honestly a shame for Lance that those people present themselves as "pro-Lance".

Tonight, all flags must burn, in place of steeples.
Autonomy must return into the hands of the people.

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

It's honestly a shame for Lance that those people present themselves as "pro-Lance".

It's really said that people call others "Lance haters" because they think Lance would be better in a different role. I was the the Lance bandwagon from the get-go, but suddenly I hate the guy because I think he'd actually be better as a super-sub. THE HORROR!

And Lance must have a pretty bad case of self-loathing, seeing how he thought he'd be better served as a backup too. What a moron.

What if someone from a school of business or management school were to ask, How did you do this? How did you get the Pacers turned around? Is there a general approach you've taken that can be summarized?

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

I don't know about anyone else, but I think my problem is with words like "intuition" and "trumps". Intuition is not usually considered a thoughtful process, and even for someone like me who believes strongly in intuition and hunches to reach a proper answer (I have been doing troubleshooting for over 30 years) it is only a tool that then needs to be coordinated with other tools, like statistics. "Trumps" implies that no matter what the numbers say, an intuitive feeling is the right answer - and I think even the best coaches or players would try to define WHY a particular set of statistics doesn't match what they see. I'd rephrase maybe as "Intuition Integrating Integers" or some such, which keeps the value of using the numbers as a tool while getting the point across that a number is not necessarily truth.

Agreed, with sports not everything is written down in a statistic. They are just a tool. The problem we often get into is people just like looking at a singular statistic, which is a flaw. You can't build a house with only a hammer. This is why when I look at statistics even if I am looking at only a specific aspect I try to find at least 3 different statistics that backup my intuition. This is why when I brought up that Danny is as efficient a scorer as some guys who most think will be hall of famers one day over the summer I didn't just use TS% or just use eFG%. I also used ORtg, which is a much more all encompassing stat. Then I went one step further, I tried to find years where each player had a similar amount of usage, and his efficiency typically matched pretty closely, often in Granger's favor. I think the ORtg is actually the most telling. Unlike TS% and eFG% it takes into consideration other things such as assists, turnovers, and offensive rebounds. All of this together is enough to tell me that Granger has been a second tier wing scorer for most of his NBA career. This also suggests to me that once he is healthy, he is only going to be even more dangerous as a scorer because defenses won't be keying on him like they used to now that he is playing with Paul.

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Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

Juries are much more formulaic than most people think. That's why when cases come out (like Casey Anthony) in ways that shock the country, many lawyers will state that the jury "made the right call."

I don't understand why this has to be either or. I think intuition is important. And I think statistics can support opinions and intuition. But intuitions can be proven wrong, and statistics can used to "prove" things that they don't really prove. And there's also observations, which stats tend to be unable to fully prove and tend to be more complex than intuition.

Player x averaging 6 threes a game means that player x averages 6 threes a game. It doesn't mean player x is a chucker. It doesn't mean that player x is a good shooter (player x could take 20 threes a game.) All the statistic means is what the statistic says it measured. In this example, three pointers per game.

Regardless, it can all be wrong or right.

The first time I watched Paul George play, I thought he was special and had a chance to be a fantastic player. (Intuition) I thought he looked like he could be a good shooter, despite his percentage, because of his form. (observation.) Everything I learned about him suggested he was the type of player that would improve, and have it in him to reach his potential. (facts.) And last season the statistics backed me up. I was completely right there.

The first time I saw Lance play an NBA game. I thought Larry Bird was out of his mind. He was too slow, too flashy. (observation.) Statically, players like Lance never learn how to play a team game. Statistically, players like Lance end up destroying team chemistry. I had intuition, observation, and statistics on my side. Yet, the guy grew up, proved me wrong and Bird right :P

Now here we have Danny versus Lance. I suppose.

Emotionally, yes..I'm tied to Danny. I think Danny has done a lot for the Pacers and deserves to have a role when the team finally has a shot at competing. I hope that if the Pacers and Danny part, it's Danny who makes that decision and not Bird. (understanding of course, that the Pacers have limited financial resources, and if Danny chooses to go somewhere that can pay him more, that's not Bird choosing to get rid of Danny.). I think Danny has earned that. And I would be very upset with the Pacers if that wasn't granted to him.

But you know what, I think people on "Lance's side" have emotional investments there. Either they don't like Danny or REALLY like Lance. There's a lot of hyperbole (which is the result of emotional reactions.).

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

It's like watching your garden for a few hours to see what's eating the lettuce. You write down your observations and see that rabbits are hanging out around the lettuce more than the other creatures. This helps you if a few weeks later you can't quite remember if it was rabbits or deer or turtles. But it doesn't help you figure out if the rabbits are actually taking a bite, if spraying the lettuce will cause more problems than solutions, or if the rabbits' "activity" around the lettuce is actually helping to fertilize it. Data is helpful, but it doesn't compete with higher level thinking and intuition.

In other words, the issue is never the statistics (ie. the data). The issue lies in our interpretation of said data.

Tonight, all flags must burn, in place of steeples.
Autonomy must return into the hands of the people.

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

In other words, the issue is never the statistics (ie. the data). The issue lies in our interpretation of said data.

wait til the SportVU stuff starts getting quoted, that'll be fun. "Lance gets to coordinate X from coordinate Y in 2.1 seconds, but Danny does it in 2.3! Danny runs 1.6 miles per game, Lance only does 1.2!"

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

Both sides submit all kinds of "evidence." A jury of people of good character are chosen to be the final arbiters, because a contested case can't be decided on simply selecting the evidence. There is always conflicting evidence. So . . . a person, or a group of persons has to make a JUDGMENT, a "judgment call," an intuition, in your gut kind of decision to figure out which one of the attorneys is submitting inferior evidence. The fact machine doesn't tell us that.

I'm sorry, I just can't let this go because it continues to use "intuition" as if it was the same as "reasoning". They are not synonyms.

No judge uses "intuition" to make a judgement in a case. A judge uses reasoning, precedent, and evidence to make a judgement (and to determine if a jury did NOT use those things when making their decision and therefore whether to overturn a verdict). Judicial decisions must be supported with statements of fact, including statements as to why certain evidence was or was not chosen.

Intuition might give you a starting point, or a flash of insight, or a new way of looking at something, but without supportive evidence it is just an idea.

BillS

"Every time I pitched it was like throwing gasoline on a fire. Pkkw! Pkkw! Pkkw! Pkkw!"
- Ebby Calvin "Nuke" LaLoosh

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

I'm sorry, I just can't let this go because it continues to use "intuition" as if it was the same as "reasoning". They are not synonyms.

No judge uses "intuition" to make a judgement in a case. A judge uses reasoning, precedent, and evidence to make a judgement (and to determine if a jury did NOT use those things when making their decision and therefore whether to overturn a verdict). Judicial decisions must be supported with statements of fact, including statements as to why certain evidence was or was not chosen.

Intuition might give you a starting point, or a flash of insight, or a new way of looking at something, but without supportive evidence it is just an idea.

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

Oh, I know all about this. But the courts in Indiana are adamant that it's judgment.

In any event, I question the Granger crowds' judgment. He's not healthy, he will not be a Pacer in less than a year and allowing him to come up to speed in actual games early in the season is going to hurt our record if he's playing at key times...and that may just lose us home court. Quite frankly (pardon the pun), I doubt Frank makes the mistake of starting Granger or having him finish for the remainder of this calendar year.

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

It's really said that people call others "Lance haters" because they think Lance would be better in a different role. I was the the Lance bandwagon from the get-go, but suddenly I hate the guy because I think he'd actually be better as a super-sub. THE HORROR!

And Lance must have a pretty bad case of self-loathing, seeing how he thought he'd be better served as a backup too. What a moron.

Last year when Paul said he likes the matchups better at SF because he can better use his quickness to his advantage (something I was saying from the day I got to PD) it was pretty much universally ignored around here because aparently players say **** they don't mean sometimes.

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

I was routinely corrected on this by multiple college profs, so I "corrected" myself. Of course, at the time, I wasn't spelling it with an -e because I knew there was (purportedly) an alternative spelling.

One of them I particularly respected (and he was prolific, meticulous, and highly respected in his research/writing, not to mention very modest about his success). Coupled with Blue and Gold's note of the court's preference for judgment, there at least appears to be a strong preference for it, at least in certain fields/areas. I'm curious as to why given the alternatives presented in the dictionary.

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

And in case anyone cares, perhaps not surprisingly we've got an American/British English divergence:

Judgment vs. judgement

In American English, judgement is generally considered a misspelling of judgmentfor all uses of the word, notwithstanding individual preferences. In British popular usage, judgment was traditionally the preferred form, but judgement has gained ground over the last couple of centuries and is now nearly as common as judgment.
Pay no attention to the myth, widely repeated on the web, that judgement is the original spelling and that judgment is a 19th-century American invention. This is simply untrue, as shown by an abundance of readily available evidence anyone can view online.
When it comes to legal contexts, English reference sources say varying things. Most seem to agree that judgment is preferred in legal contexts even in British English, and some say that American and British English differ in their strict legal meanings of judgment. Bryan Garner, in his Modern American Usage, says judgment in American English refers to “the final decisive act of a court in defining the rights of the parties,” whereas, he writes, the word in British English refers to a judicial opinion. We find nothing to contradict this, though there are many English reference sources that do not mention a legal/nonlegal distinction or an American/British distinction.

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

Danny Granger was ruled out indefinetely in October 30, 2012. The date right now is November 4, 2013. Danny has been out for 1 year and 5 days (and he hasn't even been out for that long technically since he did play in pre-season).

But let's just say that it has been 2 years because it suits our agenda, right?

And he didn't have surgery to fix the problem until last spring. April, I think? Something around then. So it hasn't even been a year. The early treatment he got was just an injection of a certain blood component or something to that effect. Sorry, but I don't consider getting an injection to be the same as surgery.

Re: Four big IF's about Lance Stephenson.

And he didn't have surgery to fix the problem until last spring. April, I think? Something around then. So it hasn't even been a year. The early treatment he got was just an injection of a certain blood component or something to that effect. Sorry, but I don't consider getting an injection to be the same as surgery.

Danny had surgery on April 4th, for specificity's sake. So like 3 years ago on vnzla time.